Early Gambling Behaviour in Online Games Parental Perspectives vs. What Children Report

In this study, we focus on early gambling practices in online games via surveys administered among primary school children and their parents. The convergence of gambling and digital games comes along with new challenges for parental awareness and mediation. The lack of an obligatory strict classification system and labelling of simulated gambling games and their gambling characteristics makes it hard for parents to identify potential risks. In addition, the online context of simulated gambling games lowers the threshold for children to be exposed to gambling activities at a very early age. Our research questions are twofold: (1) What are parents’ perspectives on children’s engagement in gambling games? (2) What do children report about their game play incorporating gambling elements? Our study therefore measures parental mediation of games of chance and explores its relation with early online gambling behaviour in children.

"There is a high discrepancy between what parents allow their children to do and what children themselves report about their online gambling game behaviour. 95.6% of the parents say their children are not allowed to play games of chance while 23.6% of the children report playing free digital gambling games such as free casino games. These simulated gambling games make use of virtual currencies instead of real money or make it possible to win virtual objects of value such as so-called “skins” to garnish guns in a shooter game. This indicates that gambling starts already early in childhood. Acknowledging this might form the gateway to more serious and monetary forms of gambling at a later age. From a parental mediation perspective, talking and discussing games of chance seems to be related to children’s real life (offline) engagement in gambling such as playing casino games with friends and betting behaviour. Unfortunately, this is not the case for the more hidden online gambling activities. Parents do not expect their young children to be exposed to gambling features through popular online games which can create a false feeling of safe, harmless entertainment while it is likely to pave the way for the engagement with monetary forms of gambling and the creation of positive attitudes towards gambling among children.